


Growth and Structure

by gutterson



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Detective Poe, Dubious Morality, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mobster Kylo, Organized Crime, Police, Russian Mafia, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 18:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11019447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutterson/pseuds/gutterson
Summary: Poe Dameron is a good detective. He works hard, does the right thing, and so what if he's crashed his car more than anybody else on the force? He get's shit done. That is, until a mobster named Kylo Ren landed on Poe's desk, and sent his world into a tailspin. With a city stuck in the middle of a gang war, Poe has no idea what the hell he's doing, anymore.





	Growth and Structure

**Author's Note:**

> The names of certain characters have been changed to better suit the setting, but hopefully I have left them close enough to the original to be clear.

Poe jerks awake when somebody knocks their knuckles against his desk. He looks up to find Rey smiling cruelly at him, a mug of coffee in her hand. 

"Please tell me you're the first one here." Poe grumbles, snatching the mug from her hand without asking. 

"Aside from the cleaning staff. I saw the Captain in the kitchen though, so you might want to wipe your drool off those files." Rey scoffs at him, taking her coffee back after Poe has drained half of it. Poe watches with blurry eyes as she drops into the chair on her side of the desk across from him. 

He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he _does_ remember the janitor shouting angrily at him to get out of his way sometime around two in the morning. Captain Ortrona had shoved a stack of files at him last night and told him to compile a summary and translation of them to be ready this morning. It had seemed impossible enough, but when Poe had realized that the stack of records he had to sort through were all about _one guy_ , he thought he might start to cry. 

Poe groans, stretching his arms above his head. His back pops multiple times, and Rey makes a disgusted noise. He makes sure to twist his shoulders so they pop too, just to annoy her. He's thinking of asking her to go get him coffee, which he's sure she'll make him pay for, when the elevator dings. The task force he's on have this floor entirely to themselves, the elevator or stairs the only way in and out. Poe straightens up as their Captain Leia Ortrona strides onto the floor, her eyes finding him straight away. 

"Dameron, do you have a presentation for us?" Captain Ortrona asks, stopping next to Poe and Rey's desk. Poe looks up at the Captain and lies through his teeth. 

"All ready, ma'am." Poe smiles, using his forearms to cover the disorganized files in front of him. Ortrona makes a humming sound and then walks away to her small office at the back of the room. 

"You know she can always tell when one of us is lying to her." Rey whispers around the lip of her mug. Poe just flips her off before turning back to the pages he'd been sleeping on.  

In the time it takes him to gather up all the pages and pictures he needs, the rest of the detectives and officers that take up residence on their floor have filtered in. Poe isn't even fully awake yet, and he just stares down at the picture in his hand for much too long. The mugshot of a teenage boy, who looks mean and battered, whose very face seemed to make Captain Ortrona uncomfortable. When she'd handed him this pages to sort through she'd had an air of desperation about her that Poe had never seen before. His files _did_ seem slightly remarkable in fairness, and terrifying. Poe knows that he is missing a chunk from the man's very first years as a criminal, and curiosity itches at him. He knows that Rey has a report to make on that part of it, but she'd stubbornly refused to share the information she had with Poe before the meeting. She said she wanted him to be as surprised as everyone else, whatever that meant. 

Poe's still hastily translating the last few words he'd missed last night when Lieutenant Wexley calls for them to gather in the conference room for the meeting Poe is supposed to be presenting his findings at. Rey gives him a condescending pat on the back as he struggles under ten tons of paperwork. The door hasn't even shut behind the last person before the Captain is speaking. 

"Detectives, officers. As you know, the Svetílo gang has been making more moves lately than I am comfortable with. Detectives Dameron and Gaetsewe have information on the man who seems to be behind the gang's new patterns." Captain Ortrona gestures to Poe and Rey, who step up to the board. Poe wonders if anybody will notice if he falls asleep halfway through his presentation. 

"Right. So, this man," Poe sticks the newest photograph they have of the man to the board behind him with a tiny flower shaped magnet. "is Barislov Soloyvov. Better known as Kylo Ren." 

"Which is a stupid name." Rey cuts in, sticking her own picture up on the board. It's a group of men Poe vaguely recognizes. He can pick out Kylo standing near the front of the group, younger than he was even in Poe's oldest mugshot. 

"This," Rey says gesturing to the picture and throwing a wink in Poe direction. "it the Vedushchiy gang. Soloyvov joined their ranks when he was only fourteen. No information on what he did for them, but he seemed to be very trusted, and highly capable even then. He was a favorite of the gang's father, Snoke." 

"I thought that whole gang got wiped out? How did the kid survive?" someone asks, and Rey smiles in a wicked way that makes Poe's hair stand on end. 

"Soloyvov's the one that wiped them out." she says, pausing as murmurs scatter through the room. Poe sees Captain Ortrona shift uncomfortably in her seat. "Turns out Soloyvov is gay, which we all know is, like, the _least_ popular thing to be in the Russian mob. So, the gang turned on Soloyvov, and he responded by killing every single one of them. A crime which landed him a whopping two months in a Russian prison." 

"Which is when he was in Lefortovo." Poe says, hoping his surprise isn't showing on his face. "After that, he vanishes for a while. Two years later, or five years ago, he starts popping up in random places. Each time he does something worse than before." Poe starts sticking pictures to the board with various cute magnets. A teddy bear holds up a picture of a body Kylo had left behind in Los Angeles. A pink heart holds up a picture of a blown up building in Moscow.  

"Until he ends up back in Lefortovo." Rey says, making a dramatic gesture to the last picture Poe has pinned up, a shot of the inside of a cell, a dead guard covered in blood and a broken bed frame the only things left in the room.  

"Briefly. He was caught smuggling Bosnian children into the country for who knows what, but he only spent six days in prison before escaping." Poe says, pointing needlessly at the picture of the dead guard being held up with a magnet shaped like a puppy. 

"Fucker escaped from _Russian_ prison?" someone asks, whistling like they're impressed. Which, Poe can understand. _He's_ impressed. 

"Fucker did indeed." Poe chuckles. "Vanishes again for a few months, and then pops up in our friendly little New York City, hanging around the Svetílo gang. Since he got here the Svetílo's activity has spiked by twenty six percent. Less then two months, and drug sales, disappearances, gang violence, and deaths have skyrocketed." 

"Particularly Italian deaths." Rey says, sticking a new picture to the board. Poe feels his eyes widen at the image of Elio Giannuzzi's dead body. He had known the Russian's had killed the Italian Mob boss, but he hadn't seen the pictures, hadn't known they'd cut him into bite sized pieces.  

"Thank you, Detectvie Gaetsewe." Captain Otrona cuts in, voice pinched, before Rey can say more. "Is that all the information you have on Borislav's time with the Vedushchiy gang? I had hoped you would uncover more than the man's sexual orientation." 

"Um, well, no. I mean, I know he was learning from Snoke, but I don't know more than that. There wasn't much information to find." Rey says, looking like the Captain had just slapped her in the face. Poe knows the feeling. 

"Very well. Detective Dameron, if you would, I think it's time for your analysis of Borislav." Captain Ortrona says. 

Poe just nods, scrambling to pull the pictures off the board, to make way for new ones. He hasn't finished this work, and he just hopes Ortrona won't be able to pick up on that. Translating overheard conversations and decoding blurry pictures of prison tattoo's takes time, and Poe hadn't been afforded much. 

"So, we'll start with the basics." Poe puts up a picture he hadn't believed when he'd seen. He hears murmurs and shuffling behind him as he pins the image in place. Kylo's body is in profile to the camera, his white dress shirt sticking to his chest from how wet with sweat it is. He's using his right hand to hold a cigarette to his mouth, and in his left hand, he's holding a wire, which he'd just plucked from the man kneeling in front of him. He also seems to be looking at the officer who was behind the camera. This picture had been recovered from a broken camera that had been left sitting on the Police department's steps, with a smiley face sticker covering the lens. The officers who'd been taking the pictures and listening to the wire were never found. 

"Basic fact number one, he's cocky, but intelligent about it. He knows what is and isn't considered evidence. This informant and his handlers went missing, and all this picture tells us is that Kylo knew he was being watched. We can deduce Kylo killed these guys, but Kylo knows we can't move on him from this picture alone. It's a taunt. 

"Basic fact number two." Poe continues, putting up a picture that had been taken on Kylo's second day of his last stay at Lefortovo. Kylo's in just his underwear in the shot, and despite the guard holding him by the hair to keep him still, Kylo's smiling, directly at the camera. "Well, maybe two _and_ three. These tattoos, his reklama, tell us a bit about him. The stars on his chest are pretty commonplace, they show that he's important in the gang, and most people can recognize them as Russian mob tattoos when they see them. The stars on the knees means he kneels to no law maker. The knife on his throat is one that applies strictly to prison, which is why it's fresh in this shot. It means he's killed while behind bars, and shows people that if they want, they can hire him to do it again. His first day there, and he'd killed a man doing six years for rape. 

"The eyes on his stomach though, are what stand out to me. They are a mark of homosexuality. Like Detective Gaetsewe said, being gay in the Russian mob is kind of a no-go. So the fact that he's openly gay, and still as high ranking as he is, it shows how _good_ he is. Not expendable My guess is, if he was going to be killed for his sexuality, the Vedushchiy's would have succeeded at it. The fact of what happened instead is, well, to be blunt, it's a little scary." 

"Do we know his rank?" Captain Ortrona asks. She's looking passed Poe as she speaks, focusing on the very first picture Poe had put up, a blurry shot of Kylo's face. 

"I do." Poe says, digging around his papers for the pictures of Kylo's hands. Putting them on the board, he continues. "His hands tell us the most. Which makes sense since he seems to only ever wear suits. Which, could say something too. It says he's old school. He seems to live in the past, in the days when the Russian mob ran everything, including New York City. 

"Uh, but anyway. Rank. He's an Avtoritet, or Brigadier." Poe points to the blown up picture of Kylo's right hand. His fingers are curled around the handle of a briefcase in the shot, but you can see the tattoos on his skin clearly. "This crown, here, is the mark of a Brigadier. Which means he's in charge of one of the working unit's. It puts only the Two Spies between him and the gang's boss in terms of power." 

"How the fuck did that happen when he's only been here for a few months?" someone asks, and Poe can tell by their voice that they're asking around a donut. Poe's stomach growls suddenly, and he hopes there will be enough donuts left over at the end of his presentation for him to binge himself on. 

"Good question, one we need to find out the answer to." Poe shrugs. "Now, the rest of these tattoos also tell us more about him, though." Poe taps the picture of his right hand again, and accidentally makes it slip out from under the flower magnet. There are a few snickers behind him as he bends down to pick it back up, and he huffs in annoyance. 

"As I was saying." Poe snaps at them. "The tattoo on his right middle finger here? It's made to look like a signet ring, a band with a circle in the center. This tattoo means that he's an orphan."  

"What?" Captain Ortrona asks, looking at Poe like he's just told her the sky is orange. 

"Kylo's an orphan." Poe repeats, trying not to make it sound like a question. 

"Yes, but why would the Russian mob have a tattoo that says he's an orphan?" she asks, and Poe feels distinctly like he's missing something. From the look on everyone elses' face's, they feel like that too. 

"Well, a lot of the times orphans get adopted by a member of a gang. It's possible Snoke had done so, since Kylo was so young when he was under his wing. Other times, it can imply that the man has killed his family, making himself an orhpan."  Poe says. 

"Which do you think it is, in Soloyvov's case?" Rey asks, picking a donut apart and popping the pieces into her mouth. Poe is absolutely not thinking of snatching the pastry out of her hand and devouring it. 

"From what I know of the guy, probably both. He killed dear old mom and dad so Snoke would take him in, seems likely." Poe's just guessing. 

"Alright, Dameron. What do the other tattoos tell us?" Ortrona prompts, looking annoyed all of a sudden. 

"Uh, well that just leaves the ones on his left hand. The spider seems like it's the first tattoo he got, and it's just the sign of an active criminal. Nothing special. The letters on his knuckles though, once I finally figured out what they were." Poe slides the picture over a little. It's a close up of Kylo's hand bringing a cigarette to his mouth, and so the letters on his fingers took Poe ages to decipher. Picking up a white board pen, Poe writes the letters next to the image. ОМУТ.  

"These letters stand for _ot menya uiti trundo_." Poe says, capping the marker with a flourish. 

"Deep watering hole? The fuck does deep watering hole mean? Is it a gay thing?" Rey asks. She and the Captain are the only ones besides Poe who speak Russian, and Poe just smiles at her confusion. 

"Deep watering hole, yes. Literally, anyway." Poe tells her, and she rolls her eyes at him. "It's not to be taken literally, though. It means that the barer of the tattoo is _like_ a deep hole. Impossible to escape." 

"Meaning?" Rey asks, furrowing her brow. 

"Meaning, once he marks you for something, it happens." Poe says. "If Kylo decides you need to die." he pauses, simply for dramatic affect. "You die." 

  

\-- 

  

Kylo taps ash directly onto his desk, just to watch Hux scowl at him. 

"Avtoritet, please." Hux grumbles, leaning forward to wipe the ash up with the rag he already had in his hand from wiping down everything _else_ in Kylo's office 

"You need to relax a little, Hux." Kylo smirks, enjoying the way Hux flushes red when he's annoyed. He starts to match his own hair. Hux doesn't respond, just keeps wiping things down. The blood has been gone for a good two hours, but Kylo just lets Hux nitpick if it makes him happy. Kylo watches Hux stretch to reach the top of Kylo's empty bookshelf, letting himself admire the curve of the man's ass for a moment. It's too bad Hux is so very unlikable or Kylo would have surley bedded him by now. Kylo's gaze is pulled away when his pone rings. 

"Chto?" Kylo drawls into the receiver, not even bothering to look at the number. 

" _News, Avtoritet._ " Phasma says on the other end. 

"Yes?" Kylo grumbles, turning his chair so he can watch Hux fuss some more. 

" _Amidio Giannuzzi took over for his brother._ " Phasma tells him, and Kylo clenches his fist so tightly around the phone he feels the plastic creak. 

"That little _idiot_ is in charge of one of the five families?" Kylo tries to laugh, but mostly he just feels _insulted_. 

" _He says he wants your head_." Phasma tells him. 

"How fun." Kylo says, not bothering to tell her goodbye before he hangs up the phone. 

"Giannuzzi's been replaced?" Hux asks, moving back over to pluck Kylo's cigarette butt from his hand, stubbing it out delicately in the ashtray. 

"By his little fucking brother." Kylo growls, snatching Hux's wrist before he can pull it back. Kylo knows if it were anyone else, he'd see fear flash through their eyes. In Hux, he just sees mild annoyance. 

"The man who tripped and knocked three containers of heroin into the ocean?" Hux scoffs, turning his wrist so his palm is facing up. 

"I extended a _challenge_. The fact that this is their answer is the worst insult I've ever suffered." Kylo spits, his fingers clenching around Hux's thin wrist as he opens his desk drawer to get to his money. 

"I don't know about that." Hux laughs as Kylo slaps a stack of bills into his upturned hand. "I heard one of the shestyorka's wife say you had an _enormously_ large face." 

  

\-- 

  

Poe drips salsa on his cat, Beebee, and she looks up at him in annoyance for it. He just wipes it off absentmindedly, flipping through the condensed file on Kylo and the Svetílo he'd come home with. The Svetílo Bratva have been active in New York for years, and they've been impressive. They operate with a precision that rivals any Poe has seen in his short time working in the organized crime division. They don't know anything about the gang. Who runs it, exactly what they do day to day, who they sell to, who they buy from. All they have now, is Kylo. He's concrete. Other member's have been seen, picking up collections and going to meetings, but they're all anonymous. If it wasn't for the Svetílo making sure everybody knew they were here and marking their territory, they'd be invisible. 

"Svetílo means luminary." Poe tells Beebee. "The fuck names a gang luminary?"  

Beebee coos at him in response, batting at the burrito he still has in his hand. He pulls a bit of the rice out so she can eat it, before shoving the rest of it into his mouth. 

"Kylo." Poe mumbles, more to himself than his cat. "What makes you so bold?" 

"You need to stop talking to your cat, man." Finn says, and Poe jumps. He'd actually forgotten he had company. Finn and Rey are sitting across the table from him, eating their own food.  

"She helps." Poe says, scratching the little orange tabby behind the ears. "She might as well be a cop herself."  

"She's only got three legs." Finn points out around a mouthful of food. "She probably wouldn't be able to catch criminals very well." 

"Don't discriminate against my disabled child." Poe snaps, snuggling the cat close on his lap. 

"You're both idiots." Rey says, rolling her eyes fondly at her husband.  

"You're very right, Mrs. Gaetsewe." Finn smiles. 

"Why thank you, Mr. Gaetsewe." Rey smiles back. 

Poe fakes gagging. Rey and Finn still act like newlyweds, and Poe finds how adorable they are truly disgusting. Rey and Finn just ignore him, and keep smiling at each other. 

"I miss you being plain old Rey." Poe grumbles. 

"I did have a last name of my own, you know." Rey sighs. Poe knows that, but he didn't ever pay enough attention to know what it actually _was_. He's sure Ortrona called her by it. He's known Rey for two years, and after a week of meeting her, she'd become Mrs. Gaetsewe. Not that Poe calls her that, because she'd get that giddy look in her eye she gets when _anybody_ calls her by Finn's last name. Gross. 

"I'm not thinking about you, I'm thinking about Kylo." Poe says, picking up a picture of the guy and waving it in front of Rey's face. She snatches it out of his hands, giving him a paper cut in the process. He hisses, which scares Beebee, and sticks his finger into his mouth. 

"I guess he is your type. According to this he's nearly six foot three. I bet he could throw you around _real_ good." Rey giggles, turning the picture back to Poe. He realizes it's the picture from Lefortovo, of Kylo in nothing but a small pair of briefs, and he scowls at her. 

"That is _not_ what I meant." Poe says around his finger.

"Whatever." Rey says, tossing the paper at him with a look on her face that says how little she believes his innocence. "And you're wrong, by the way." 

"About what?" Poe asks, his finger still in his mouth. 

"Svetílo." Rey says. "More commonly, it means _celestial light_."


End file.
